CARROLL — Two Perry thinclads will take to the famed blue oval of Drake Stadium Thursday afternoon as they compete in the Class 3A boys state track meet.
Junior Kato Dougan will run in the 100 dash preliminaries at 1:05 p.m. with senior Kaleb Olejniczak to run in the 400 dash at 1:40 p.m. The top eight times in the former will advance to Saturday’s finals, at 12:55 p.m., while the 400 is a timed final.
The pair advanced from Friday’s qualifying meet in Carroll, with Olejniczak narrowly missing a spot in the 200 while Jasmine Shriver was a near-miss in the 100 for the Jayettes.
Class 3A assures state placements for the top-two finishers in each event, with the final eight spots reserved for the next-best statewide. Shriver finished the 100 in 13.49 and would have taken the 24th and final spot, but a Norwalk runner who crossed in 13.5 was second in her district, the automatic spot bumping all at-large finishers between 13.38 and 13.5.
Dougan’s 11.73 is the 24-seed and was the flip-side of the Shriver situation, the junior benefiting from the automatic placement.
Olejniczak was sixth in the 400 in a personal-best 51.45 seconds, but the competition in Carroll was so speedy that the top six finishers will have the 2-3-5-6-7-8 seeds at the state meet.
Humboldt and Atlantic were 1-2 in the boys team standings with 157 and 143 points, respectively, with rivals Glenwood and Harlan tying for third at 115 each while Perry was seventh of eight teams with 41 points.
Glenwood easily won the girls side with 182 points, with Atlantic (108) and Humboldt (104) following while Perry was eighth at 21.
Olejniczak ran the 200 in 23.76, with Bryan Funez and Mario Cruz running the 800 in 2 minutes, 16.14 seconds and in a personal-best 2:16.87 to finish 7-8.
Jeb Stewart had a personal-best 19.24 in the 110 hurdles while completing the 400 hurdles in 1:08.33, with Eduardo Sanchez (5:09.2) and Hayden McFarland (5:13.18) on the track for the 1600. The Bluejays left the 3200, 4×200 and high jump open.
Luke Holtorf had a PB shove of 46 feet, 10 inches in the shot put, missing a state spot by only six inches. Cole Snyder had a PB spin of 117’1 in the discus, with Jordan Long added a new best of 18 feet, 1/4 inch to place eighth in the long jump.
The best relay finish for the Jays was a fourth-place 8:54.18 in the 4×800, with Funez, McFarland, Sanchez and Cruz handling the duties while Dougan, Olejniczak, Justin Stammer and Joseph Clark posted a season-best 1:37.59 in the sprint medley that finished sixth.
Also sixth where Collin Malmberg, Jeremiah Cregeen, Long and McFarland in the distance medley (4:07.08), Funez, Clark, Cruz and Cregeen seventh in the 4×400 (3:54.87) while Malmberg, Long, Caden Steva and Carlos Calderon finished the 4×100 seventh (50.16) and Stewart, Logan Haynes, Ben Stika and Jayson Chavez the shuttle hurdle in seventh (1:22.8).
Freshman Jaylene Karolus placed fourth in the 3000 in 11:34.39 while crossing sixth in the 1500 in 5:22.07 to cap a strong first varsity year.
Quinn Whiton was seventh in the long jump after hitting the sand at 15’2-1/2, with Whiton crossing, in 29.84, in the 200. Sydney Helmers was the top Perry girls thrower in both the shot put (24’5-1/4) and discus (73’5).
The Jayettes left the 400, 800, 100 hurdles, 400 hurdles, shuttle hurdle, 4×800 and high jump open and did not finish the 4×400.
Payton Tunink, Mary Ann Riesberg, Kennedy Tunink and Karolus were seventh in the distance medley (4:51.72), with the Tunink cousins, Riesberg and Whiton eighth in the sprint medley (2:17.32) while Riesberg, Whiton, Kennedy Tunink and Shriver were eighth in the 4×100 (58.01). Also placing eighth was the 4×200 team of Lanie Fish, Viviana Escalante, Alondra Avila and Zari Hopper, the quarter finishing in 2:12.51.
Ben Coy is the Bluejay head coach, with Matt Hardy head coach for the Jayettes.
